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The secret life of mafia hunters

2022-09-12 18:37:49Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX

 

The secret life of mafia hunters
Catturandi

 

The Mafia has been part of Sicilian life for generations, and so has the police's struggle to arrest its leaders. The elite unit that goes after them is called Catturandi which means "catchers". One of her officers tells BBC journalist Max Paradiso about the shadowy world he works for, and how he had to keep his profession a secret from his girlfriend until she accidentally recognized him on TV.

The only time you probably get to meet a Catturandi member is when they arrest a mobster. They are nameless and faceless men who wear hoods when performing operations to ensure they cannot be identified.

"We like to be called the Lion Band because that's what we do: wild, free and ready to attack at any time in the jungle," says IMD.

Catturandi consists of less than 20 of them, and this is an obvious reason why they want to be exposed as little as possible.

"During the day you get death threats from bad guys, goat heads sent through doors, it's not nice," says IMD. In the 90s, he also took pictures of his car's license plate, marked with a red circle. The threats caused many of his colleagues to leave "Catturandi" but the IMD did not do this and over the years the risk of assassination has been reduced. He and the other officers often manage to develop surprisingly intimate relationships with the criminals they pursue. They can spy and follow them for decades before arresting them.

"It's like living with these people. You hear how they behave with their children, you hear their family issues, you see their children grow up, and their emotions become yours too," says IMD.

One of the people they followed was a doctor in Palermo, who is now in prison. "He was really knowledgeable, we all learned Italian literature by listening to him. We also took notes on the books he mentioned in his endless lectures to the children. It was like listening to a radio program and we were all amazed by his ways of explaining, his thinking and his creativity. It was hard to believe that he was a criminal." The weeks after an arrest can be stressful.

"You don't see them anymore, that's something psychologically difficult to deal with, because a while ago they were part of your daily life and now you start missing them," says IMD.

In his two decades with the police, IMD has helped arrest at least 300 mobsters, including Giovanni Brusca, notorious for kidnapping and torturing the 11-year-old son of another mobster who betrayed him. Brusca had killed the boy and disintegrated his body with acid, and as a result the boy's family could not bury him. At the time of the arrest, when Catturandi raided the mobster's house, IMD says he experienced a mix of emotions.

"You have to ask a variety of questions: Why do you kill?" Why would you do such a thing to another human being?”

But conversational opportunities are limited, and other exchanges are expected to be unsatisfactory.

"When we caught Brusca, he started crying like a baby. Provenzano, the boss of bosses, on the other hand, sat quietly and whispered in my ear: You have no idea what you're doing. However, we caught them and that's what mattered."

 

The secret life of mafia hunters
Catturandi arrested Giovanni Brusca in 1996...

 

 

 

The secret life of mafia hunters
...and Bernardo Provenzano in 2006

 

Brusca was a key factor in the crime that inspired the IMD to join forces with the police. On May 23, 1992, he planted half a ton of explosives in a Palermo street to kill the anti-Mafia judge, Giovani Falcone. Brusca was later identified as the man who pressed the button to detonate the bombs.

"I was at my girlfriend's 18th birthday party," says IMD, who was a biology student at the time. "Her father was the head of the Palermo police and when the bomb went off, all the police officers who were at the party left in tears.

The IMD immediately wanted to know what had happened, but when he found out that explosives had been detonated on the airport road in Palermo, he decided to go by motorbike to the city center.

"When I entered the bar in a small square, I saw several people laughing while eating panini. I told the judge that Falcone had been killed. They turned to me and said: What do we need? I knew what I wanted to do. The next day I joined the police force to catch as many bad guys as I could."

At the time, very few Sicilian boys wanted to join Catturandi, in part because the work was too dangerous, so IMD's application was immediately accepted.

 

The secret life of mafia hunters
Falcone, his wife and three bodyguards were killed by a bomb

 

"Most people you knew stopped talking to you or spat in your face after becoming a police officer was considered treason," he says.

The secret life of mafia hunters

He dropped out of school and while at university, his friends chased women into clubs, the IMD was hounding Giovanni Brusca and other mob bosses like Salvatore Toto Riina, who ordered Falcone's murder.

While chasing Brusca, IMD and some of his colleagues ended up in Cinisi, a small town near Palermo.

"The idea was to introduce ourselves and get to know as many people as possible in Cinisi without raising suspicions. Of course it worked. I caught the runaway but I had to marry her afterwards (laughs). Instead of taking her to beautiful beaches to kiss her under the stars, I took her to horrible places, dead ends with garbage, just to follow her. She always asked: Why here when there are so many places? After I left him at home, I went back to the office and reported."

When they caught Brusca they were all in front of the TV, filming the arrest.

"When my wife (then girlfriend) saw all those people wearing hoods she noticed something that was familiar to her. He recognized me. But fortunately, she was able to keep the secret."

Italy's most wanted mobster, Matteo Messina Denaro, known as "Diabolik" - a nickname he got from an elusive thief in a comic book. The head of the Sicilian mafia, who has been in hiding since 1993, police believe lives abroad, most likely in Latin America.

The secret life of mafia hunters
Matteo Messina Denaro

After tracing several coded messages he spoke to other criminals, the police managed to arrest 11 people, but Denaro himself, as always, was elusive.

While the Sicilian mafia is no longer as powerful as it was 20 years ago, it continues to be a problem for the island. "They know they cannot kill people as they were used to before, but now they have interests related to politics and finance as well as the very structure of Sicilian society," says the IMD.

However, for many, especially teenagers and tourists, the Mafia still creates a beautiful atmosphere. On the street corners of Palermo, t-shirts with the Godfather of drugs, lighters in the shape of pistols are sold.

"Palermo's streets are a real paradox, just like this town," says IMD. "We would like to be as civilized as the rest of the world, but the unknown world of crime does not let us move forward." 

 

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